SaturdayWe left at 7:30am and drove on the N1 heading towards Gariep's Dam, 8 hours away. Everyone had told us that traffic was going to be terrible since it was holiday all over the country and the road between Cape Town and Joburg was always bad. Turned out to be great with some construction but no traffic. We realized about an hour or so into the drive that the rental car company never gave us our papers to cross into Lesotho (proves the car's not stolen). We got them to fax it to where we were staying but first we had to figure that out. We wanted to stop in Gariep's Dam for dinner and then drive the next couple hours to Ladybrand, right outside Lesotho. After a few calls we had booked ourselves into a guest house called My Housy in Ladybrand.
Gariep's Dam was beautiful and a preview of beautiful sights to come. We found a bar to eat at, not a great first dinner with pretty awful service. Then, we started driving at around 8pm to Ladybrand. We soon realized why the GPS was telling us to take the long way around, as the shortcut was a dirt road. We still beat the GPS's projections and got in around 10:45pm. My Housy turned out to be the nicest place we stayed on the trip, as it was originally R390 per person. On the phone, I had heard her say that it was R390 for the room not per person. I was able to negotiate it down to R1000 total so R250 a person. Everyone loved the included breakfast and it continued to be brought up every time we had a sub-par breakfast. She gave us some tips about Lesotho and ended up only charging us R200 per person, quite a bargain for the breakfast and great accommodation.
SundayWe drove to the border in the morning and it was expectedly a bit confusing. We had to get out of our car twice to get our passports stamped. They never actually checked that we had stamped our passports at the gate though. We also turned out not to really need the documents the rental car company had faxed over.
We drove around Maseru, the capitol and only actual city in Lesotho, and headed towards the dirt road. The 65km of dirt/rock road took us 4 hours to drive through and was the most challenging driving I had ever done. At some points we were going 10 kmh literally driving over boulders. The worst parts of the road were actually the paved parts because they were filled with huge potholes. At least with the dirt roads they could just send a bulldozer and smooth it over. We got to the top of the hill with Semonkong Lodge at the bottom and realized there was no way the BMW was getting down that hill let alone up it the next day.
We sat there while Evan walked down the hill and asked the lodge how they expected us to get down the hill when they had assured us the sedan would be able to make it to the lodge no problem. They ended up finding someone in the village to watch the car for us while they drove us down in their 4x4. We dropped our stuff off at our Basotho hut where we were staying and went to go train for the world's longest single drop abseil (repel) in the world. They had us abseil down a 20 meter rock face three times, making it harder each time. The training was a good time in itself but it had started to rain and was cold so we stopped in the bar for some hot cocoa.
We met a family who was staying there who ended up giving us some great suggestions for the rest of our trip. The father was Swedish but had lived in Lesotho for a good portion of his life and had met his wife Ruthy, an American from North Carolina. He had hiked all through the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa on the eastern border of Lesotho, and suggested we hike up to Amphitheatre, basically a rock formation that was in the shape of an Amphitheatre with the world's second highest waterfall. We made that our next major destination and planned the rest of the trip around it.
Dinner was ok as we had to eat at the Lodge since there wasn't really another option. We went to bed early because we were leaving for abseiling at 7:30am the next morning.
MondayAfter a mediocre breakfast, we got in the 4x4 and took the 20-minute drive to maletsunyane waterfall. We hiked with our gear on horse-back for about 15 minutes to where we would descend. The view was magnificent, incredible, beautiful, there really aren't enough words to describe it. We just sat there struck by our surroundings while they set up the equipment. I was last to descend and though I was able to control it most of the way down, it got quite wet near the bottom as the waterfall sprayed to the side. That's what happens when you abseil down the one of the highest single dropping waterfalls in Africa.
We had an hours hike back to the top and Ayano hadn't been given a raincoat to go down and was feeling some mild hypothermia. Once we got to the top she had warmed up and was fine. It was a great hike and the whole experience was well worth what we thought was R600. When we checked out and they told us it was R750, I was a bit surprised as it had clearly said R600 on the website. Turns out we were supposed to look at when the site was copyrighted (2007) and that it had been too difficult for them to update the price for 2 years. They were not willing to compromise at all, claiming we should have asked. We were pretty pissed and my review of the lodge quickly went from 5 stars to 0.
We had lunch in town where the only thing on the menu was chicken (cold and slow but good), then I drove us back through the mountains and then back down to Maleala Lodge. There were much better roads to Maleala and only a 7km dirt road. They had saved us dinner and we all collapsed in bed around 10:30.
TuesdayI had another cereal and bread breakfast, trying to eat as much as I could since the pony trek would be 3 hours without food. At around 9:30am we all climbed on our horses and rode off into the mountains. I had been pretty excited to do pony trekking as it is one of the major attractions in Lesotho, but it turned out to be a bit disappointing. The guide did not say much unless it was to yell at us for letting the horses eat. We met another woman once we got to the top of the gorge, and she led us down to the caves to see the Koi San paintings. We stopped at the first cave for what I thought was a break but turned out to be where some paintings were but none of us could see them. Then she showed us two other caves farther down where there was an abundance of paintings. It was pretty cool seeing something that was painted 27,000 years ago, but I think my dehydration and allergies were getting to me and I was not enjoying myself. We got back and I had some water and showered and felt much better.
We stopped in Maseru for lunch, first sitting down at a hotel restaurant where we quickly realized nothing was available on the menu so we left. We ended up at a pizza place which was exactly what all of us needed. Evan did the rest of the driving to Clarens (2 hours from Maseru). We got to the town around 6:30 and entered on a back road into a sketchy neighborhood. Once I called the hostel owner and got proper directions though we realized the town was just as nice as the guide book had said. It was definitely a tourist town but it was cute and consisted of lots of restaurants and shops all around a square park. It took us a little while to find someone to give us our keys at the cool but abandoned hostel, and then we drove back into town for dinner. We ate at a great italian place, a little pricey (pricey here is $8-10 per dish) but well worth it.
WednesdayI woke up and made pancakes (crepes) for everyone here in the hostel kitchen and afterwards we went into town to explore Clarens. We found a great cafe with free and unlimited internet (a rarity in South Africa, I think it might not have been the cafes internet), so I camped out there planning the next day while everyone else went shopping. We had lunch at the cafe too and then got back on the road.
First stop was Golden Gate National Park, a beautiful park that is supposed to contain lots of animals (not the big 5 though). We did see some antelope but not as much as the guide book made it seem. The views were well worth it though and we had to drive through it anyways. From my research, I knew there was a resort right next to the base of the Amphitheatre hike but I could not find any information online or a working phone number. We decided since it was early in the afternoon we would drive the hour or so and just hope they had space available and it wasn't too expensive.
It turns out it was a little on the pricey side (R240) but after some calculating by Evan everyone decided it would be fine since it was pretty convenient. The Witsieshoek Mountain Resort was pretty run down but we managed to make the best of it. They let us cook our own pasta in their industrial kitchen which was a lot of fun. I also borrowed some flour and made flat bread for us and the staff. Without that it would have been a pretty awful place, but the views and the dinner made up for it.
ThursdayWe had breakfast at 7am and we were on the road by 8. It was another dirt road, in pretty bad condition, but at least it was only 10km. The guy at the Sentinel Car Park told us that we needed a trail pass but we had come in last night after hours and there was nobody at the guard house to purchase one. I talked him out of making us go all the way back to the guard house and get a pass.
The hike was 3.2 miles each way and scaled about 500 meters. It took us about 2.5 hours to get up and about 2 hours to get down. The views were of course spectacular and at only one point as we climbed 50 meters on a chain ladder was it scary. You can view the hike
here, as I used my iPhone to record the way back with GPS. Amphitheatre is basically a large rock formation in the shape of an Amphitheatre and is one of the most photographed parts of South Africa. The Tugela River falls down the face of Amphitheatre creating the second highest waterfall in the world. It was most definitely worth my 4 and a half hours.
We returned to our car around 2:30pm, drove through the last dirt road on our trip and made it to Bloemfontein for dinner around 7pm. We ate on the waterfront, very similar to the V&A waterfront in Cape Town but on a lake instead of an ocean. I had found Jazztime Cafe in our guide book so we ate there but we were a bit early for the music and the food was not so great considering there were so many better options in the mall. We did get to eat outside though and we had pretty much skipped lunch so it was just good to eat. We drove for another 2 hours to Colesberg and stayed in a small house that was sparse but clean and everything we needed.
FridayWe drove to breakfast at 9am in town but forgot that it was Good Friday and nothing was open. The gas station had a Wimpy (basically a Denny's) which had a surprisingly good breakfast. We had left Colesberg by 11am and drove straight to Stellenbosch arriving around 6:30pm. Stellenbosch is the wine capitol of South Africa with many vineyards but also a nice downtown area with lots of great restaurants. We settled on a cafe/restaurant and all had delicious and fast (a rare thing in South Africa) meals. We went next door for dessert at another cafe and toasted to a fantastic holiday.
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